by A. C. Cobble
Oliver winced then followed.
His mind went blank.
When he regained focus, he was seated next to Sam, little tremors rattling his teeth.
“That could have been worse,” remarked Thotham, standing over them, watching the open doors around the foyer. “I recommend you draw your weapons now.”
Oliver struggled to stand, pulling out his broadsword, and rubbing at an uncomfortably warm…
“The amulet!” he exclaimed. “It’s getting hot.”
Thotham nodded.
Sam held her kris daggers in her hands. She was poised to leap, but nothing appeared.
“There are spirits nearby, but they aren’t attacking,” stated Oliver. “Why?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” replied the old priest. “Sam, lead us deeper. Duke Wellesley, you take the middle, and I’ll bring up the rear. Whatever happens, do not separate.”
Sam eyed two open hallways, each dimly lit, neither offering any apparent advantage that Oliver could see. They both led away from the foyer and curved gently so that after a dozen paces the corridors disappeared behind the wall. Apparently choosing one at random, Sam led them farther into the manor.
The hallway was lit by a single mirrored sconce reflecting the light of a burning wick. Tall, life-sized portraits of ancient Dalyrimples stretched down the hall. Each painting showed a single man or woman posed powerfully on the grounds around Derbycross. The family was old, and the row of portraits was meant to prove it. It was a challenge to visitors, surmised Oliver. The Dalyrimples had been there for a long time and would remain there for all time. Ahead of them, the hallway continued to curve, and all Oliver could see was rich, oak paneling and extravagantly framed portraits.
The amulet burned against his skin, but the light from the sconce, positioned at the apex of the curved hallway, showed no moving shadows, no people, nothing but corridor. The sounds of their steps were softened by plush rugs, and they advanced slowly, each of them gripping their weapons, peering ahead.
The tension in Sam’s shoulders was obvious as they walked, tension he hadn’t seen since they’d stalked through the jungle on the island of Farawk. He wanted to reassure her, to tell her they were at her back, but by silent agreement, they no longer spoke. Whether Isisandra knew they were coming and could track their progress through the manor or not, they didn’t want to make it easy by giving themselves away. They would proceed stealthily as long as—
Oliver was slammed against the wall of the hallway, his body crashing into one of the life-size portraits of some centuries-old Dalyrimple, who then reached out of the painting, clutching at Oliver’s clothing and throat.
Shadowy arms wrapped around him, and he was spun to see a man-sized figure emerging from the painting across the hall. The creature, composed of pure shadow, swung a fist that cracked against Oliver’s jaw.
The amulet hanging around his neck burned against his skin.
“The dagger!” cried Sam.
Oliver dropped his broadsword and yanked a slender, obsidian dagger from his belt.
The shadow punched him again, and he stabbed the dagger into its arm. A cry, heard and not heard, echoed down the hall as the monster was absorbed into the spirit-blessed, black glass blade.
Oliver swung the dagger back behind him, catching the apparition that was holding him, and was satisfied to hear another not-scream. He staggered free and immediately confronted a third one of the picture-monsters.
Behind him, Thotham was cursing under his breath. The man’s spear whistled through the air as he thrust with it and thrashed around. Ahead, Sam was plowing through a wall of shadows, ducking and dodging as fists and feet pummeled at her. Her two kris daggers knifed through the throng, each strike bursting a picture-monster into nothing.
Oliver saw a haze pass between him and her and he rushed forward, swinging the obsidian dagger wildly and grinning when he felt it pass through something not quite solid and not quite air. In a moment, the barely perceptible sounds of the shadows’ screams faded, and only the three of them were left in the hallway.
“What in the frozen hell was that?” gasped Oliver, the dagger still in his hand, ready.
“Grave shadows, the weakest form of a summoning,” explained Sam, glancing at the portraits beside her. “They’re bound to representations of themselves in life, and even then, they are nearly insubstantial. They cannot get far and have little ability to touch anything other than a living being. They’re useless at manipulating inanimate objects.”
“Well,” mentioned Oliver, “we are living beings, and we’re walking down a spirit-forsaken hallway filled with these portraits…”
“There’s that,” admitted Sam.
“The summoning was weak,” agreed Thotham, “but so many of them… This girl has studied more than I would have expected for one just eighteen winters. She is strong and dangerous.”
“She was taught from birth,” remarked Oliver, gesturing at the lines of portraits. “Her parents were steeped in sorcery, and I suspect their parents and generations before them. This compound has been in family control for hundreds of years, and I just realized something about it.”
“What?” asked Sam.
“We’re walking the edge of a circle,” responded Oliver. “This hallway and the other form a circle. This whole place was built with sorcerous intentions. Generations of Dalyrimples residing here… I don’t know much about sorcery, but I do know you don’t create something like this without passing your knowledge down to your heirs.”
“Damn!” cried Sam, looking back and forth along the hallway.
“The governor and the countess were just continuing the family tradition,” speculated Oliver, “and so is Isisandra.”
“That’s not good,” murmured Sam.
“No, it’s not,” agreed Thotham. “That means we’re not just up against what the girl was able to prepare in the last few days. We also have to deal with whatever defenses her ancestors put in place. We’re not just up against her knowledge, but what the shades of sorcerers long dead have taught her.”
“Should we turn back?” asked Oliver.
“Probably,” replied Sam. Then, she started down the hall again.
Oliver cursed and collected his broadsword, sliding it into the sheath and rubbing his jaw where the shadow-man had socked him. He gripped the hand-length obsidian dagger in his fist as he hurried after Sam.
The Priestess XV
She knew Duke and Thotham would fall in behind her, watching her back, so she focused ahead. She’d been stupid not to see it. The nobleman was right. They were walking around a circle. As she kept going, she realized it was now a closed circle. She picked up her pace, watching as more portraits, more mirrored sconces, and then more portraits, and another sconce, and more portraits rotated into view around the curve.
“Ah, Sam…” worried Duke from behind her. “I think… I think something is wrong.”
She stopped, glancing back behind them then ahead. Duke was directly behind her, appearing confused and scared. Thotham was still in tow, but the man looked like he was barely paying attention to their surroundings.
“Thotham,” she hissed. “We’re stuck in the circle somehow. We keep walking around and around.”
He blinked at her.
“We have to break out of this, but…” She stabbed down the hall with one of her daggers. “It’s just more wood-paneled hallway ahead and behind us. I think we should have passed the way we came in two or three times by now.”
Without word, Thotham hefted his spear then thrust it into the face of one of the portraits. He yanked it out, spun, and then stabbed another portrait on the other side of the hall.
Psychic shrieks filled Sam’s head, bringing a grin to her face. She darted ahead, slashing her sinuous daggers across the canvases, splitting them open and banishing the spirits that resided within. In moments, the light from the closest sconce flickered and then went out.
She clamped her teeth down on o
ne of her daggers and pulled out the small vial of fae light she was carrying in a pouch. She shook it, stirring up the fae and brightening the light.
The hallway looked the same, but ahead of them, she saw a break in the paneling. A stairwell down, she guessed. She glanced back at Duke. “Anything?”
He nodded tersely, holding the obsidian dagger in one hand, the other clutching his shirt, where the amulet he wore was surely uncomfortably warm.
“Down we go,” she said. She led the party to where, as she suspected, a flight of stairs penetrated into the belly of the manor.
She entered the dark tunnel, her breath coming quickly, her heart racing. She was surrounded by unornamented stone blackened by centuries of smoke. Stairs covered in red carpet turned purple from the blue light of the fae descended out of her vision. One, two, three flights of stairs… they kept going down. The air grew cool and damp, but instead of the rich scent of soil or the wet stench of condensation on stone, it smelled like the copper tang of blood.
The carpet grew slick under her boots and she lowered the light to see spots of mold and mildew where the moisture and long years had eaten into the fabric. Soon, it disappeared entirely, revealing plain rough-hewn stone beneath. She held out a hand to steady herself against the wall then recoiled when it seemed to writhe beneath her fingers.
“A lot of souls have been killed down here throughout the years,” murmured Thotham from behind.
“The amulet is cooling,” whispered the duke. “Is that… Do you think…”
“There are spirits above us but not below… for now,” said Thotham, his voice echoing eerily past her. “That does not mean there will not be or that we won’t find something worse. Stay alert.”
Sam didn’t bother to respond. She didn’t need a warning to know to stay alert.
They continued down the tunnel until below her, she saw the flickering light of fire outlining an opening at the bottom. They were eight, nine flights of stairs below the manor. The air was crisp, the smell of blood permeated the space, and now, she was detecting the stink of something awful burning.
Duke placed a hand on her shoulder, and she realized she had stopped. She started down again, each step drawing closer to the opening of the tunnel, giving a broader view of what lay below.
A room, or perhaps a cave, was well-lit by multiple fires burning out of sight. A floor of some black stone shined wetly in the firelight. It was inset with a thick gold band. As she got closer to the opening, she realized the band was a twenty-yard-wide circle with a five-pointed star inside. Giant braziers burned with man-high flames at four of the points. At the apex of the star, opposite the entrance to the chamber, stood Isisandra.
She was clothed in flowing, black silk robes. A silver circlet bound her hair. In the center, dangling on her forehead, the circlet held a small pentagram. Her lips were blood red — hopefully from paint — and she gazed with calm disdain as Sam stood in the threshold of the tunnel.
“Anything?” asked Sam quietly.
“Nothing,” responded Duke.
“Don’t—”
“Let me guess,” replied Duke sardonically. “Don’t walk onto the giant pentagram?”
Sam stepped into the room, her eyes fixed on Isisandra, but taking in the rest of the space out of the corners of her vision. One wall held hulking shelves filled with books and mechanical devices. There were two work benches, a scattering of chairs, lamps, and rugs were strewn as if it was a country gentleman’s library. The other wall held matching tables except instead of books, they were topped with steel manacles and coated with blood. On the wall, brackets were fastened where captives could be held until needed. Racks of implements hung beside the brackets. Whips, pincers, saws… Sam fought a wave of bile as she saw a heaping pile of mutilated flesh, bone, and viscera tossed casually to the side of the gore-stained tables.
“Sorry,” remarked Isisandra, noting the look. “It seems I’m all out of servants to clean up the mess.”
Cautiously, Sam entered the chamber, seeing the ceiling far above and guessing the room was originally a cave located beneath the manor. Centuries ago, it must have been excavated for the family’s dark experimentation. The girl offered a humorless smile as Duke and Thotham entered as well, spreading out, the giant golden pentagram separating them from her.
“It’s over, Isisandra,” declared Duke.
The girl laughed, and Sam sighed.
“There’s nowhere to run,” he tried next.
“Oliver, you have no idea how in over your head you are, do you?”
He gripped his obsidian dagger but did not respond.
Behind Isisandra, out of the shadows, stepped two hulking brutes with heads like wolves, torsos like men, except half again as large. They were bound with muscle, and their hands ended in long, taloned fingers. Their waists were covered with leather loin cloths, and their legs, as thick as Sam’s waist, were hinged like those of a canine. In their hands, they harried massive battle axes as tall as she was. They crouched, and Sam gasped, expecting them to launch themselves across the room.
Instead, she heard a startled cry from behind and spun.
Thotham staggered forward and fell onto his hands and knees, his spear clattering onto the stone floor. He groaned, and a streamer of crimson blood leaking from his mouth to dribble onto the floor.
A man was standing behind them, apparently coming out of hiding beside the entrance to the stairwell. He was holding a blood-covered blade in his fist and his eyes blazed with delight.
“No!” she shrieked.
At the same time, Duke asked, “Marquess Colston?”
The man’s gaze rose from the fallen priest to Duke.
“Rafael, did you just stab him?” cried the duke.
The marquess smirked then swung his off hand up, flinging a cloud of powder at Duke’s face.
He uttered a strangled cry and fell back, but Sam didn’t have time to worry about the nobleman. From across the golden pentagram, the two wolf-men leapt, their powerful legs thrusting them high above the occult pattern. The creatures, three times Sam’s mass, cleared the pentagram and landed heavily in front of her.
“It’s not activated, but don’t—” Thotham’s warning ended in a pained, wet cough.
“Avoid the giant pentagram, I know,” she snapped.
She bit down on one of her sinuous daggers, holding it in her teeth, and snatched the smooth river stone from her pouch, the one Duke had nearly shattered back in Westundon. The wolf-men reared on their hind legs, and she hurled the stone at one of them.
It struck the creature square in the chest and bounced off. She was glad Duke didn’t see it happen. The stone, meant to absorb a shade, was apparently completely useless against whatever these monsters were.
Ignoring the stone, the wolf-creature swung its massive axe at her.
She ducked the axe easily but couldn’t draw close to strike as the second wolf-man thrust the butt of his battle axe at her. The end of the thick wooden haft was spiked with a sharpened bit of steel as long as her arm. Retreating, she backed around the room, avoiding the noxious cloud of powder that Duke was enveloped in. She danced farther from her injured mentor.
The wolf-men pursued her, and from a string of vile curses, she surmised Duke had survived whatever the marquess had thrown at him. Survived so far, at least.
The huge axes lashed at her again, the wolf-men’s thick slabs of muscle bunching and straining as they swung their incredible weapons. The creatures were big, powerful, and slow, so she was able to fall back and avoid the attacks, but with two of them and the certainty of a fatal blow if the axe blade struck her, she could only retreat.
She fell back to the sitting area, where Isisandra evidently relaxed in her sorcerous kill chamber, and darted behind a couch, hoping to slow the advance of the monsters, but one powerful swing with an axe smashed the couch into kindling, completely chopping it in two, and then it was casually kicked aside.
The first creature launched itself
at her, flying at head height, its axe raised to swing down and cleave her as cleanly as the broken furniture.
She ducked, lunging forward and sliding on her hip, trying to reach up and slash at the beast with one of her kris daggers, but the thing was too high. She slid until she hit something hard. She looked up at the second wolf-man towering above her like a giant. Its jaw hung open, its tongue lolling out between its fangs in a canine smile. It leaned down, and the steel spike on the bottom of the axe jabbed at her head.
The Cartographer XX
Marquess Colston raised his hand and released a cloud of black dust.
Oliver gasped, inadvertently inhaling a lungful of the substance. In an instant, his world spun, and he was lost in a swirling night sky, spinning stars, and then utter darkness. Bitter cold washed over him and as he opened his eyes, he looked down at a lunar landscape filled with legions of marching spectres.
“She’s not here,” boomed a voice like thunder rolling down a mountainside, shaking Oliver’s body and his soul.
“Frozen hell,” he screeched.
The legion of faces looked up at him, and as one they spoke, their voice like crumbling iron. “She is not here yet, but you can join us if you like.”
They marched as they spoke, moving across the barren landscape toward a black sea where on the shore, a towering inferno of white fire burned. A fire he recognized. A fire he’d seen twenty years earlier when his father’s airships had annihilated his future home. His mother’s home. Northundon burned in the vision.
The fire, bone white, spiraled far into the sky, far higher than it ever had in his memory. It raged with a cold that he could feel from half a league away. The endless stream of souls marched toward it, a serpentine line, stretching out of his vision into the darkness.
He coughed, hacking up greasy ash. The legion of faces passed under his feet like blades of grass or waves beneath an airship.
They turned to look up at him again. “She has not joined us, Oliver Wellesley. Come, burn with us upon the altar. Come be a part of the sacrifice.”
