by Ember Lane
To the carving’s side, Lincoln spied a lock, and knew that he had already been gifted the key. He carefully took out his sack, hovering his hand over its open throat, demanding the key.
“Seven wards, seven knights of Estorelll, seven crew,” he muttered, the coincidences still stacking in his mind.
Reaching forward, he slotted the key home and turned it in the lock. The door swung open, tearing the key from his grasp, revealing the stone corridor, but only the first few feet, and only in an eerie red. He swung on the rope, concerned voices echoing down the shaft, but he made the ledge, scrambling to hold the doorway’s edge, and quickly untied himself. As he let go of the rope, he gave it three sharp tugs—the sign that all was okay.
Lincoln ran his fingers over the Darwainic’s bust, over his long, flowing hair and down his tangled beard. Then he turned his attention to the wall. Though he guessed Starellion had been hewn from the rock of the mountain itself, the corridor was clad with crafted stone, so perfectly chiseled that it had required no mortar to hold it in place. Even though he couldn’t see too far along its length, he had the distinct feeling that this crafting would carry on. Thinking back, it was of a similar beauty to that of Darwainic’s crypt. A thud from behind ripped him from his muse.
A blindfolded Griselda stood in the doorway. “Don’t tell me, you brought rope, hooks poles—the whole lot, and forgot a torch? She reached into her sack and brought out a lamp. “Oil of the Mislake Mushroom—it’ll burn with a diffused glow. I take it you brought a strike?”
Lincoln felt his muddled mind clear, his confusion evaporate. Griselda was infinitely simple in a good way, and with that, came a clarity of course. The corridor needed illuminating; here’s the torch. The castle needed clearing; here’s my ax, that sort of thing. Life was complicated around Swift, Finequill, Flip, and the rest, but so simple around Griselda. No wonder everyone adored her.
With the lamp lit, Lincoln ventured forward but glanced back as he heard the soft thud of Jin arriving, followed by the almost imperceptible caress of Swift’s landing. Cronis’s burp rang out as he was winched down, Lincoln noted he still had a mug of ale in hand, and finally Crags followed with Belzarra and then Flip. Griselda barged past Lincoln and away from the red glow, tearing off her blindfold. Swift sidled past too. Jin, Flip, and Belzarra followed Lincoln, with Crags and Cronis bringing up the rear. Swift lit another lantern and crept down the corridor. Lincoln quickly tried his divination but could sense nothing underneath but rock.
The scout vanished around a corner at the corridor’s end; Griselda soon followed, and Lincoln found himself at the top of a set of stone steps that wound down in a sweeping spiral. Like the corridor, the masonry was seamless; the steps though were dished—worn by the soles of countless feet. Air that should have been dank and musty tasted fresh, though no breeze filtered up.
Lincoln still felt the presence in his mind, lurking, waiting within a chamber of thought. He wondered if it was just him. Had Poleyna opened his mind to accept this…communication? No one else had mentioned it, and he didn’t have a mind to share. The Warrior’s intrusion felt deeply personal, and he mourned that it wasn’t his to hold on to. Surely if he was the one to free this thing, shouldn’t he be the one to covet it, to hold it, and to keep it? Did they really expect him to just give it away?
Laughter chinked through his mind.
All in good time…
“No cobwebs,” Cronis growled, breaking into Lincoln’s reflection, and then a clatter shattered the tension as the wizard threw his mug down. “No cobwebs usually equals trouble,” he grumbled.
“Hold on,” Lincoln called and halted, gathering his thoughts, using his divinity skill again, sinking deep into the steps below. He stopped ten, maybe fifteen feet down where the steps ended, a single exit to one side, but he couldn’t fan his sense out. “About twelve feet down,” he told Swift. “Exit to a chamber.”
Swift nodded. “I’ll go look. You bunch stay here.” He handed his flaming torch to Griselda, and the apachalant melded with the shadows. Even Cronis was silent while they waited, the air thick with stifled breaths. Swift reappeared a little while later and waved them on. “It looks like an illusion. I sensed no threat, but the illusion may yet have more scenes.”
They all pooled at the step’s end, looking out at a strange view. The chamber in front of them showed a black land, a land of gray slate shelves, small, craggy valleys, and deep black-blue sky. A single stag stood proud on the farthest slope—defiant in the face of bleakness. Lincoln jumped when a shaft of light burst down from the heavens, and a man fell to the land. An air of bitterness, a scent of evil swept around as the short, rotund, balding man ranged his gaze, mischief etched on the lines of his chubby face.
Soon standing next to the stag, his chest puffed out, he reached down and grabbed a small boy, raising him high by the scruff of his neck. The fat man laughed, an insane, maniacal laugh, and he threw the boy at them. The boy’s body spun as it closed on them, growing larger, filling their vision, threatening to smash right through their rank and then vanishing in a flash of darkness. All faded to black, but then the cries rang out.
Luminous-green effigies, warriors dressed in furs came walking at them, drooling, half-dead beings, dread beings, and Lincoln heard Jin whispering, “And so it begins.”
Griselda drew her great double-headed ax from her sack. Jin started firing his bow, Swift faded into the shadows, and the first dread warrior fell. Lincoln took out his own ax—the one from Tanglewood—and burst forth with a bellow: hacking, slicing, and cutting. The undead just walked toward them. They fell as their legs were severed, or dropped an arrow struck home. They were endless, constant, their march never faltering. Lincoln struck and struck, more bodies fell, more came, and none piled up.
Gritting his teeth, Lincoln held his ground. He saw the flash of Griselda’s ax, the blur of Flip’s body as it weaved and struck, weaved and struck. The beings were hard men, harsh men, their faces fixed in a snarl, yet they offered no threat, merely walking to their doom.
“Move forward!” Jin shouted. “There’s no end if we stay here.”
Lincoln understood what he meant. Unless they surged into the chamber, the illusion would just keep coming. Suddenly yellow sparks flew over his head, spreading like lightening, fizzing from one warrior’s head to the next. Lincoln glanced around to see Belzarra casting her spells furiously. He switched back, slashing at the on-walking warriors. They appeared to thin out, to falter in their constant advance, and to fall. Lincoln sensed victory, but then the cries went up.
Great bellows issued from the eerie, green warriors, and their faces became colored with rage, and they drew their swords, picked up their trailing maces, and raised their axes. The battlefield came alive, and Lincoln suddenly had two on him. He soon sunk into a rythym, chop, uppercut, parry, slice, and as soon as he had an opening, his ax hit home. One fell, two fell, blood spurted, sweat billowed, and his vision became a sea of enraged faces.
The warriors fought; Lincoln’s energy waned. Griselda’s ax fell. Cries turned to grunts, the howls turned to screams. Stone flags lost their sure tread as the blood of the warriors spilled, its smell invaded Lincoln’s nostrils. He faltered, falling to one knee under the press of the relentless enemy. Belzarra’s magic fell in the nick of time, giving Lincoln the space to stand again.
He became lost in the battle’s mist, the warriors mere fodder for his pent-up anger. He forged a corridor through them, and then saw his prize at its end. There stood a boy, long blond hair, his eyes bound with black cloth. The boy bowed and then ran at him. Lincoln crouched, timing his strike, and when the boy crossed an imaginary line, he struck, a sure and true cut. The boy vanished, his black clothes floating to the ground, settling in a pile in front of Lincoln. Belzarra’s yellow magic touched the last of the warrior’s heads, and then all became still.
Lincoln realized he was kneeling. He picked the boy’s cloth up with his bloodied ax. “ShadowDancer,” he whispered.<
br />
“The boy Zender,” Cronis’s crabby voice rang out. “That was Zender, before the fat god Belved corrupted him into the man he is now. He was just a boy then.”
“How did he grow into ShadowDancer?” Lincoln asked, and looked around for an answer.
Flip was on his knees, the usually jovial rogue was breathing hard. He looked up, his golden eyes still glinting with intrigue. “Like you all do. He ground his way up, but it helps if you’ve got a god pushing you along.”
Lincoln grunted. He’d done well enough with just a few well-placed luck points; he could only imagine the power the boy held.
“Easy enough,” said Belzarra. “I barely got my wand warm.”
“Maybe because you didn’t start right away,” Griselda pointed out.
“You tell me just how I’m supposed to get involved when Swift could be darting around anywhere? Ranged magic is more the blanket effect if you want me to drop a few at a time.”
“She’s right,” Jin said. “We need to work on our structure. Do we even have a healer?”
“I have some healing,” Cronis said, now sitting on the step. “Don’t know whether my noninterference counts…”
“About that. Why are you here?” Lincoln took out his water bottle, took a sip and passed it to Griselda.
“There can be only one reason. I must interpret what we have seen. That has to be the only conclusion.”
“So, what do you conclude?” Griselda asked.
“That what we’re seeing is a history of this land. Belved was the first new god. Zender was the first immortal. This is what we were meant to see. The warriors were from Cer Wallum’s tribe—the tribe that Zender eventually took over after killing Wallum. Our first scene was the birth of his chaos. You witnessed the start of Ruse and the end of Shadows. But I don’t think that’s the important part—I don’t think it’s the part I’m supposed to remember.”
“So, what is?” Lincoln asked, just as Cronis clicked his bony fingers.
“It’s supposed to fill in the gaps in my mind. The boy Zender, he came long before any others. He was the first, by many a year, but time flowed differently then. It’s hard to explain.”
Lincoln rested back on his hands not knowing quite what to make of this new revelation. The boy Zender was a player, so he must be on a ship, but he’d embarked earlier than any other? And which one? Which ship? Plus the real question was—did it matter?
Lincoln looked around the room. Though the battle had been brief, all battles took their toll. Legends of swordfights that lasted for hours could never be believed if you’d ever wielded a sword or ax, and even in-game, Lincoln’s stamina was limited. He saw that he had a few notifications blinking, and scrolled through them. An energy warning, a few damage ones that he hadn’t even felt, he’d leveled up in swords, and gained 250 XP from the shared total.
He shuffled up to Griselda. “You okay?”
“Warming up. Did you see the gnome?”
“Crags?”
“I can hear you,” Crags said.
Griselda shrugged. “Well, you had a compliment coming. Where did you learn to fight like that?”
Crags beamed, jumped up and waddled over. “You’re not much taller than me, so you should know. If you’re only small, you need the moves…” And he winked at her.
“I’ll go on,” Swift said, and vanished into the shadows again.
“And that was exactly what I was talking about,” Belzarra pointed out. “He just vanishes; you’ve got no idea where he is.”
Now empty of Cer Wallum’s undead warriors, Lincoln saw that the room was about fifty feet square and had one other exit, an archway, across from the steps. It was empty, but some lines on the otherwise perfect masonry told Lincoln partitions had once sectioned off various areas.
“Grain store,” he muttered to himself, and wondered if there wasn’t a working mill somewhere. It would be fairly easy to rig up, especially when the river cascaded down the center of the castle. He imagined a concave water wheel, and the cogs and drums needed for it to function.
“Formation,” Jin said, ripping Lincoln away from his musings. “Based on the last fight, I’d say we’re going to have to form up with Griselda, Lincoln, and Flip as the main melee. We then have Crags and Swift take out the flanks, staying away from the central line of engagement. That will enable Griselda and I to engage with ranged fire and magic over the top of the melee—sound good?”
No one argued. Swift returned and Jin filled him in on the plan.
“So, what next?” Cronis asked.
“Difficult to say; it looks like a path through a jungle with a stream floating close by. Yet I know it can’t be.”
“How?” Lincoln asked. “Apart from the obvious.”
“Because the river just appears at your feet, and you can pass your hands right through the girl.”
“Girl?”
“She says her name’s Merissia.”
14
Merissia’s Tear
Another corridor led away from the first chamber, one side briefly opened out to the shaft, and once again Lincoln marveled at its intricate carvings, its leafings, its gargoyles, and busts—all bathed in the mystical, red glow. Lincoln felt the presence in his mind surge as though it was pleased to see itself, or maybe just recharging its energy. The closest thing he could liken it to was a core: the mischievous awareness of a dungeon. It settled his mind thinking of it like that, giving him something at least tangible to cling to.
In the usual order of things, they would be the adventurers, and the core would be the foe, trying to trap them, skewer them and assimilate their essence. But this was not normal, far from it, and it seemed those rules didn’t apply here. Lincoln still had the feeling that the Warrior was testing them—making sure that they were good enough for it.
After the curving balcony, the path they followed arced away to another set of downward steps. These were wide enough to accommodate the whole group. At their end, Lincoln looked out over a lush, sweating jungle. Broad, waxen leaves teased out from sharp, stubby trunks like mini palm trees. Other sturdier trunks burst upward, stopping abruptly to spread in a flat, heavy canopy that only let through beams of slanting, emerald light. Red seed pockets broke the green backdrop, hanging from thick, sprawling plants that clung on vines to reach up and gaze longingly at the covered sky. It was impossible. It was beautiful.
The woman appeared just a moment later. She wore a simple, white tunic, cinched in the middle with a thin, gold rope. Her skin held a walnut sheen that matched her wide eyes perfectly. A line of skin traveled along the center of her scalp, forced wide by the stretch of twin, brown ponytails. She was still, stoic; yet there was something more about her that Lincoln couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“She’s scared—deathly scared,” Griselda whispered, and as soon as those words were spoken the girl turned and bolted.
Lincoln burst after her, the compulsion to catch her, to talk to her, filling him, pushing any concerns for safety aside. Leaves flayed him, cut him, scythed through his skin. Sounds clattered in his mind. He heard drums, the beat of war; he heard throaty yells, the sound of threat. He tried to focus on the fleeing woman, but kept glancing around. Figures moved on either side of them, loping along, keeping pace with him, their bodies visible then gone, visible then swallowed. Their beat, their hollers sounded, like an orchestra of hate, filling Lincoln with fear for her, fear for himself.
She kept slipping away, dodging through the leaves, around the great trunks. Lincoln pressed on. He heard a fizz, saw a shadow, and instinctively ducked—a thud and twang as a spear hit home in one of the trunks. Close—too close. He felt a hand grab his shoulder, and spun.
“We need to catch her!” Lincoln shouted, trying to free himself from Swift’s grasp.
The hiss of another spear, desperate panting from the rest of his group, Lincoln saw Belzarra’s magic crackle away, touching the darker warriors, surprise etched on their painted faces.
“
Sharreff,” Flip shouted, as Jin began loosing his arrows.
“We have to catch her,” Lincoln shouted, despair raking through him. He pushed Swift’s hand away and darted back after her. The compulsion to catch her was too much for him.
The path of broken leaves and snapped twigs weaved between their attackers, and Lincoln tore down it, throwing himself forward with every step. Plunging down a bank, slipping with its gradient, he hurtled into a stream. He glared both ways like a deranged hunter after prey. Catching a blink of white cloth, he stumbled down the stream, its water was gripping his ankles, slowing him, though its cold breathed life into his failing limbs.
“Hold on!” he cried, as the air around became thick with arrows.
Lincoln’s back exploded in pain as he was shoved to the bank. Griselda pulled his head around, her face inches from his own.
“You’re no good to her dead—respawn or not,” she hissed.
Lincoln looked back upstream and saw Jin and Belzarra countering the unseen bowmen. He saw Flip join in, his own bow in hand. Crags and Swift crouched down with them, but Cronis was nowhere to be seen.
The arrows stopped coming, and Lincoln jumped up. He fought his way downstream, each step a struggle until the stream became wider, wider and shallower, his steps just splashes. Forging forward, he caught a glimpse of her. She seemed to be standing at the edge of the world.
“No!” Lincoln shouted, as the woman held her hands out and fell forward.
Lincoln surged after her reaching the edge of the stream, but it wasn’t a waterfall, nor a cliff, but a ridge and a large, round hole, then the flat of a plateau—then nothing. “A sinkhole,” he whispered, and looked around.
He saw Griselda, Swift, and Jin with Crags tucked under his arm. He saw Flip and Belzarra running, turning, and firing: running, turning, and firing. Behind them, a horde of painted faces filled the narrow cut.
“Jump!” Griselda shouted. “Trust to any god—just pick one.” She burst past him, plunging into the hole.
